


Trust and Respectability

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen, for sham's existence, no actual plot just conversation, spoilers- 1934
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12090552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Graham is adamant that meeting Elmer had been nothing short of a miracle. Shaft is not sure he agrees.Written for the prompt“He’s respectable, but, ya’ know, a little bit dodgy.” said about Elmer by whomever you choose





	Trust and Respectability

They reach a certain point in the evening where Shaft is checking his watch every minute or so, waiting for it to tick over into that loosely defined territory during which _“sorry, boss, I’m gonna hit the hay”_ becomes a believable out. They had reached that point forty-two minutes ago, to be exact, and now in the forty-third, he can only sink back in his seat and listen as Graham rehashes a story he’s heard a hundred times before.

“— Such a sad, sad ending… But I only have myself to blame. I should have seen it from the start! I’ve been so blind, so, so, _blind_.” He raises his voice to a shout, though not an angered one. He grins wide and shouts, slams his hand against the side of the car. “That’s the fate of the messiah, isn’t it? To disappear from our lives suddenly and tragically! He shows up in our time of need, when we’re oppressed and downtrodden, suffering under the malevolent rule of the wrathful sun, and he performs a few miracles —”

“C’mon, boss, miracles?” Shaft groans, rubbing the side of his face. “What miracles?”

“What miracles? What miracles? What miracles!” He tosses his wrench into the air and catches it with one hand — a pointless feat, because the next thing he does is drive it through the hood of the car he is sat on, right where it might have landed if his reflexes had failed him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the miracles! No, no, no, that’s awful, heartbreaking news. What happens when a lowly fella like one of us insults the messiah that way? Divine punishment? Godly wrath?”

“What’re you talking about? Doubt that guy could even pull off normal old wrath, nevermind godly wr —”

The wrench swings his way, and though it is a good three feet from his face, he flinches back. Graham’s free hand flies up to cover one ear.

“I can’t listen to this. No, I _can’t_ listen to you disrespect the messiah. I can’t have anything to do with that sorta skepticism. I won’t! All this doubt is tearing into my soul. It’s making me feel so lost, so — so lost —” He takes in a deep, shaking breath, and like that he is steadied. “Alright, I’ve got it. Maybe he’ll forgive you if you sing your praise for him. Repent — that’s it, you’ve gotta repent! Let’s sing together, three, two —”

“Hold on, _hold on_.” Shaft shakes his head. “You tellin’ me you want me to _sing_?”

“Singing? Yes, yes, singing! Now that’s an idea. We could sing a hymn, a hymn for our hero and our saviour —”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit over the top?” He presses his palm to his temple, tilting his head back. He can no longer bear to look at his watch; the number is irrelevant, the number is _too many_ , too many minutes spent circling around this topic. “Look, boss, I’ll give ya that he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. Sure, he’s respectable, but, ya know…”

* * *

Maybe it’s that the first time he hears it, the name sounds like the quiet hum of drizzle before a downpour.

“Elmer C. Albatross?”

“Yes, Master Huey. Mr. Carpenter believes it would be in our best interest.”

“I see.”

He must be one of the newer scientists Huey has brought in. Sham cannot put a name to his face, but they all have a certain quality — a coldness which, he reasons, is a prerequisite for the job. He avoids making eye contact when he speaks, keeps his chin down. Most of them do, in Huey’s presence, but Sham knows it is a luxury that _he_ bears witness to it. The only time the other homunculi see the scientists bow their heads is when they are looking down on them with scalpel in hand.

“He insists the results could be incredibly valuable.”

“Of course.” Huey nods. “I have no doubt that he could learn a great deal. Elmer is… an interesting man, to say the least.”

Even from where he stands at the door, Sham sees how Huey’s expression shifts. If he did not spend so much time watching him, he might not make anything of it; he smiles, and smiles, and smiles, but it is empty, and then it is half full, and then it is just _sharp_. Then it is not a smile, it is a warning. He half pities the scientist, who only smirks, not seeing anything at all.

“Tell me, once he is finished with Elmer,” Huey speaks slowly, sitting back in his chair. “Is he prepared for what comes after that? I do trust that he is, but I must ask.”

“I — I don’t follow, sir. Is he prepared for…?”

“Ah, forgive me for being unclear. For the tests,” he explains, and folds his hands on his lap. The way he speaks, the way he lounges in his chair, he could be talking about the weather. He isn’t. “The tests that will be conducted on Mr. Carpenter during your next research project. I am sure he will make a fascinating subject.”

Sham half pities the scientist until he is audience to the his fall from pride to thinly-veiled horror — _horror_ at the mere implication that one of _them_ could be put under a scalpel, to be poked and prodded and _tested_ ; at this reaction, he finds even that modicum of pity fading from his mind.

“Master Huey, with all due respect, he —”

“He’s too important to be wasted on petty experiments? Too valuable to be made a lab rat?”

So it is not pity that dries this vessel’s — _his_ — throat. It is not pity, and it is not about the scientist at all.

Huey stops smiling.

He does _not_ , not for one moment, give the impression that he is wounded.

“You’re quite correct. It would be a shame. He’s one of my most useful assets.”

The scientist must mistake his frown for surrender. His stiff posture gives way with an audible breath of relief.

Sham, knowing better, is not surprised when Huey breaks the silence.

“But you should know by now,” he continues, leaning forward. “No one is _too_ valuable. Isn’t that right? I imagine you would not be making this request otherwise. I imagine you are _smarter_ than to suggest that Salomé is somehow more valuable… More indispensable than a man I have known for some two hundred years. Do you believe that one is more suited to being made a lab rat than the other?”

There is something in his voice that says that this would not be an incorrect assessment — if the scientist had only assigned each their correct value. This time, the man does not mistake Huey’s intent. He goes quiet.

“Please, I’m curious now. Is that what you believe?” It is a gentle nudge, which loses some gentleness when there is an unspoken threat to respond to.

“No, Master Huey,” the scientist chokes out.

“So you understand.”

He stands, then, moving with all the fluidity of a wind-up toy, and faces Sham himself.

“Relay a message to Salomé,” he says. “Tell him that he is free to do what he will with Elmer,” — he pauses a moment, his lips twitching faintly — “and that, in the spirit of fairness, I will see to it that the same is done to him.”

Sham nods, and thinks —

“Twofold, of course,” Huey adds as he brushes past. “One must take interest into account.”

Huey Laforet can threaten the nation with his apathy, but the lack of it is another force entirely.

Sham does not see storm clouds that day, but he hears the first few drops of rain. They land with uncharacteristically heavy _thuds_.

* * *

“He’s a little bit dodgy.”

Graham’s entire face contorts with shock, then indignation, then something that looks a bit like confusion until it is _anguish_ and he lurches forward to cradle his head in his hands.

“Dodgy? You’d call the messiah _dodgy_? I’m at a loss. I just don’t know what to do! I never thought you’d betray me like this, Shaft. What an awful, awful pain! Cutting like a thousands swords, straight through my back — no, worse, through the _messiah’s_ back —”

“Listen, all I’m saying is we don’t really know what he’s about. What’s his business? Who’s he working with? Like you said, boss, he shows up outta nowhere and then he’s gone, just like that. For all we know he could be gathering information to give to…” Shaft takes a beat to choose his words, crafting, from his concern, concern that Graham would be able to believe. “To give to some, some info broker. Nevermind all that talk about being friends with a terrorist…”

— But there’s the crux of it.

He hadn’t believed it at first. No, he _had_ believed it, because it was there, plain as day, but he hadn’t been able to wrap his head around it. When he had considered what sort of person could start a storm in someone like Huey Laforet, he had not for a second conjured the image of a man who wanted nothing more than to make the world smile.

He believes it now, if he had doubted it, though he is not sure where to sort the information, not sure whether to place it with meaningless coincidences or disasters waiting to unfold. If meeting him had been a test from Huey, Huey surely would have responded to Sham hiding it — or not, or worse, he is quietly taking notes, observing his reactions, his reactions to _his_ reactions, or the absence of either. It is convoluted just enough to hang at the back of his mind as a distinct possibility. While Graham rambles on about the reverent figure he had found in Elmer C. Albatross, Shaft ruminates on where and how and to what extent he might overlap with looming figures in his own existence.

“… a traitor among us. How miserable, how heart-wrenching a betrayal. I don’t want to believe it, but… No — no, you’re right. Maybe you’re right. You’ve planted the seed of doubt in my heart now. What a tragedy. A tragedy on top of a tragedy — my back _has_ been stabbed, but by the very person whose back you stabbed. The stabbee becomes the stabber —”

“I ain’t saying all that.”

He sighs, shaking his head. There’s something to having his words thrown back at him in the most incomprehensible terms. What _is_ he saying? That Huey would send a spy to spy on his spy? That the Elmer he met could be a _threat_ to anyone?

He doesn’t know. Maybe that’s what’s bothering him, more than anything. It’s that he doesn’t _know_. Graham is still talking, but he’s barely listening.

“If Julius Caeser turned around and —”

“Just be careful about who you put your faith in, alright?” he settles on saying, hypocritical as that advice might be. “No one’s trustworthy enough to be treated like a messiah.”

**Author's Note:**

> me? writing 1930s characters? it's exactly as unlikely as you think and probably not ever happening again


End file.
